1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile communications terminal, and particularly, to a method and apparatus for converting photo slides (still images) into motion pictures (video) in a mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals having image capture devices (such as cameras) are becoming more popular, which has allowed users to easily take photos and videos anywhere and anytime. In addition, as wireless Internet access technologies continue to develop, users can download images, photos, and videos from a network server (or other storage means) by using their mobile terminals. Therefore, Multimedia Message Services (MMS) allow a user to send captured images or previously downloaded images together with brief messages attached thereto to other users.
When transmitting photos via MMS, there are relatively few problems when transmitting a small number of photos or when transmitting small-sized photos. However, if a large number of photos are to be attached and thus the maximum transmission capacity of an MMS message is exceeded or if the size of each photo to be transmitted is relatively large, transmitting such large sized or large number of photos via MMS cannot be properly achieved.
For instance, if the maximum transmission capacity of a typical MMS message is assumed to be around 400 Kbytes, and if the size of a single photo (having a resolution of 640*480 pixels of high image quality) is about 70 Kbytes, then up to five photos can be properly transmitted using a single MMS message. However, most wireless communication service providers limit the size of an MMS message that may be transmitted. For example, a maximum of only four photos may be allowed as an attachment to a single MMS message.
Therefore, if the user wishes to send more than the maximum number of photos allowed for attachment to a single MMS message, the user must inconveniently perform the procedures for sending an MMS message two or more times until the desired number of photos can all be transmitted. This also causes inconvenience to the recipient, who may need to receive several MMS messages and repeatedly perform the same message receiving procedures in order to obtain all the photos that were sent.
Also, because most wireless communication service providers charge their users per each MMS message being sent or received, the costs incurred in sending and receiving more than one MMS message undesirably increases the overall costs of communication.
In order to solve such problems caused by the limitations in sending and receiving MMS messages in the related art, a technique in which a plurality of photos are combined into a single photo slide-show and transmitted as an attachment file has been introduced. However, this technique still suffers from limited capacity, which does not meet the increasing demands of users who wish to send large numbers of high quality photos.
In addition, it is impossible to transmit the photo slide-show attachment to a recipient mobile terminal that does not properly support a photo slide-show function or to a recipient mobile terminal that has not been synchronized with the sender mobile terminal.
Moreover, because photos may have different formats according to the type or model of the mobile terminal, when transmitting photos to a recipient mobile terminal that is a different model than that of the sending mobile terminal, the format of photos to be transmitted must be converted into a suitable format that allows proper reception and processing at the recipient mobile terminal. As a result, the costs incurred and resources consumed for such format conversion are undesirably high.